2004-11-24 - 10:06 a.m. The Half Day The half day is generally a good idea, because it makes for happier employees who don�t mind coming in. This is perfect information which I think is the best case scenario. This is because the people that were going to out and out take the day off will reconsider because typically taking a half day off counts as a full day and they will be more than willing to come into work. There are a lot of people that travel and so doing this is good for keeping people productive for the company, as well as making the people not taking time off just as happy. The only problem is half days typically are �tank it� days, but I often find you get more work done because you don�t have 8 hours to have to stretch it through. In the case of imperfect information (who can tell I like economics) we have a much more disgusting problem. This is the situation I am in when I do not know if I am going home early, and all I know is that in the past its been very erratic whether or not we get let out. Two years ago we weren�t. Last year we were. (I could further back, but you get the point) This means that I come to work with the expectation, but not the knowledge, that I will be going home early. The company thinks this is great because then without workers knowing they will be more productive and happy and surprised when they are let go early. This is wrong. That works if it�s a Tuesday in the summer, not the Wednesday before thanksgiving. Lets look at what I might be thinking. Obviously, the Think Full, get full is good. The Think Half get half is good as well. The think full, get half is the best, meanwhile the Think half get full is the worst. So I guess the best decision for the employer is avoiding the Think half getting full, because everywhere else they are either indifferent or happy. The company controls only whether we get a full or half day. We control what we think. There for if the company can�t control what we think it should avoid the Full day, because giving a half day will make its employees regardless of what they think either happy or indifferent. However, the crux of the problem is the company can just announce what is plans on doing before hand, the thus CONTROL what we think. That way no one will ever end up in the THINK HALF: GET FULL. The price, no one will be in the Think Full: Get half. But that�s where probability comes into play. On the Wednesday before thanksgiving what do you think the chances are that people are thinking Full day. 10%? 20%? Would you go that high? So if there are 100 people, with 15% thinking full day and 85% thinking half day are you going to ever be better off by giving the full day? Take a look at this. It�s a lot easier to make someone hate the company than like it. If you can assume that this is even somewhat close (and I would argue EVERYONE here thinks we are going home early) then its clear the only good thing to do is to commit to telling your employees your intentions before hand. Of course this is why people hate the people they work for, and why Americans don�t like work. No one even can bear to think about the interests or desires of the people under them. I am a little bitter today. Happy Thanksgiving everybody. I will be eating with one hand, with Shelly this year, because my grandfather is sick with a virus that I can�t get anywhere near. At least I have a wonderful girlfriend to spend thanksgiving with. (ie I am giving thanks for that ) Bye. | |||||||||||
